The advent of factory automation has ushered in a new era in industry. Computer-integrated manufacturing and automated warehousing has brought new, more sophisticated requirements to the plant floor. Meshing the requirements of the forklift and the automated guided vehicle in the same workplace requires new approaches to equipment, materials, and personnel
Conventional conductor management systems leave much to be desired. The present invention, however, provides accessible conductor accommodation which allows the user to meet changing needs, whether in the factory or in the office, as he copes with evolutionary unfolding change.
Prior art encompasses computer access flooring supported on fixed corner support columns and the like. The access panels are generally supported at their corners. Generally, access flooring has been composed of metal panels and sometimes covered with carpet and other flooring materials. The stability of computer access flooring has been challenged, particularly when photographs of access flooring installations taken after an earthquake reveal that the supports gave way, causing millions of dollars in equipment damage and data loss.
My own U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,546,024, 4,681,786, and 4,698,249 have certain elements in common with this invention.
There are several United States patents which deal with the polymerization of impregnated monomers by means of vacuum irradiation. They include Witt U.S. Pat. No. 4,519,174 issued May 28, 1985, Bosco U.S. Pat. No. 3,808,032 and Bell U.S. Pat. No. 3,808,030, both issued Apr. 30, 1974, Barrett U.S. Pat. No. 3,721,579 issued Mar. 20, 1973, and Welt U.S. Pat. No. 3,709,719 issued Jan. 9, 1973. Although this invention does not deal with these methods of finishing hard surface materials, this invention does deal with the use of applied wearing surface materials which have been finished by these methods.
The forces driving this invention are the development of flexible manufacturing, the electrical powering of factories, the electronic operation and computerization of factory production, the use of computer-assisted engineering, computer-assisted design, computer-assisted manufacturing, computerized numerical control, and the general automation and computerization of the factory and office workplace.
This invention is substantially different than all the known art computer access flooring disposed on corner support columns. My invention provides discretely selected special replicative accessible pattern layouts of suspended structural cast plate modular-accessible-units with biased corners shaped to accommodate combinations, such as, the following:
suspended structural modular-accessible-units plus modular accessible nodes
suspended structural modular-accessible-units plus modular accessible passage nodes
suspended structural modular-accessible-units plus modular accessible poke-through nodes
suspended structural modular-accessible-units plus modular accessible nodes plus modular accessible passage nodes
suspended structural modular-accessible-units plus modular accessible nodes plus modular accessible poke-through nodes
suspended structural modular-accessible-units plus modular accessible passage nodes plus modular accessible poke-through nodes
suspended structural modular-accessible-units plus modular accessible nodes plus modular accessible passage nodes plus modular accessible poke-through nodes.
The arrays of suspended structural modular-accessible-units and nodes are disposed over matrix conductors accommodated within a load-bearing three-dimensional-conductor-accommodative-passage-and-support-matrix and held in place by gravity, friction, and assemblage, and sometimes by registry, to provide shallow depth of less than 6 inches (150 mm). The modular-accessible-units comprise modular-accessible-planks, modular-accessible-pavers, modular-accessible-matrix-units, and modular-accessible-tiles which also include modular-accessible-carpets and modular-accessible-laminates.
Tile floors are desirable for many purposes, since they are easily maintained in clean condition and in a high level of appearance, and are less subject to wear than carpeted floors, where the appearance level is reduced rapidly to a generally lower level than when originally installed. Accordingly, tile floors are highly desirable for use in, for example, multi-story public and government buildings.
Ceramic, quarry, selected natural stone, and hardwood flooring, and the like, have proven capability to last centuries when properly installed, while currently these tiles installed with rigid joints more often than not have cracking of joints or penetration of the tile joints by liquids and chemicals which cause loosening of the rigid bonding of the tile to the supporting substrate, causing breaking of the tile and further loosening of adjacent tile, or acids in liquids deteriorate structural elements, such as steel reinforcement in concrete substrate, or allow unsanitary liquids to drain down on occupied spaces below.
Conventional grouts, thin-set mortars, and mortar setting beds, as well as improved conventional grouts and thin-set mortars with a variety of new type additives, are all rigid in nature, requiring a rigid substrate, wherein this rigid support depends on rigid bond and support, and such tiles are all subject to gradual penetration of liquids in varying degrees working their way through grout joints, thin-set mortars or mortar setting beds adhering the tiles, causing gradual swelling, bacterial growth, bond disintegration, which lead to gradual coming loose of tile in most installations from their horizontal base surface, and deflection of the horizontal base surface quite often causes conventional, rigidly set and rigidly grouted tiles to come loose, which uncushioned tiles easily break against their rigid substrate and adjacent tiles, causing additional disintegration of tile, whereas this invention exploits the gravity weight of the tile, friction, and accumulated-interactive-assemblage combined with the flexible joints between adjacent tiles, forming a dynamic, interactive, floating assembly with fluidtight flexible joints between adjacent tile free of penetration of fluids to the horizontal base surface below, beyond the porosity of the tile itself, which tile, if it is made of good quality clays fired at high temperature, is of very low porosity, wherein the tile is held in place by a more dependable force of gravity with a proven superior duration when compared with conventional rigid bonding means for attaching tile to a horizontal base surface, and wherein floating tiles are cushioned against breakage by a horizontal-disassociation-cushioning-layer which concurrently provides the improved impact sound isolation disassociation within a very thin combination.
As a disadvantage to the currently available tile floors in multi-story structures, those above the first floor of a building are highly transmissive to impact sound generated, for example, by the shoe heels of a person walking across the tile floor (women with spike heels and men with metal clips), or other forms of impact on the floor. The sound is transmitted to the floor below, and in the event of a heavy traffic area, such as, a restaurant, dance floor, apartment, condominium, hospital, nursing home, or the like, impact sound transmission through the floor below to occupied spaces below can be a very serious problem, requiring the installation of carpeting even when, for other reasons, carpet is undesirable or not the best answer. As a result of this, it becomes very difficult to place a dance floor, high-traffic restaurant, hospital, nursing home or apartment on an upper floor of a multi-story building since there are strong reasons or personal preferences to leave such establishments uncarpeted but, rather with hard surface, enduring floors. The occupants of the floor below may be seriously disturbed by the continuous transmission of the impact of footsteps on the tile.
Similarly, in multi-story apartments and condominiums where it is desired to keep maintenance costs to a minimum, the impact sound of footsteps and the like from the apartment overhead can generate excessive disturbing noise and a continuous series of tenant complaints, forcing the installation of carpeting, and its added expense, periodic cleaning, replacement costs, and the like.
While previous attempts have been made to produce tile coverings having high loss of impact sound from transmission to other occupied areas, particularly areas below sources of impact sound, they have not been very successful. For example, wood tiles have been placed on 1/2 inch (12 mm) plywood which, in turn, rests upon 1/4 inch (6 mm) cork sheet lying on a wood or concrete structural subfloor. With this configuration, the sound damping has not been exceptionally high, and the problem of warping of the plywood requires the use of screws to hold the plywood in place which, in turn, helps to transmit the impact sound to the structural subfloor. Also the system is not waterproof and comes up if water is allowed to stand on its surface overnight. This invention, using waterproof materials, overcomes this disadvantage.
In accordance with this invention, a horizontal-tile-array is provided having reduced impact sound transmission through its horizontal base surface. If desired, this can be combined with improved thermal insulation or the floor supported on foam insulation, with or without a horizontal-disassociation-cushioning-layer, for impact sound isolation, and may be accomplished with a unique, dynamic system in which the tiles are resiliently carried upon the horizontal-disassociation-cushioning-layer. Tile breakage, due to the receipt of an excessive load from a spike heel or a heavy woman or the like, can be essentially controlled or dampened for good tile floor life, coupled with improved impact sound isolation.